2005 CNNP 7542 I got direct from Kunming last week. I broke up about 80g of it today. The first few infusions are still a little more bitter and astringent than I'd like, but the aroma is great. I transferred the tea from my porcelain pot to my Yixing at around infusion four and the difference was staggering. Drinking sheng (or even aged shu) out of porcelain just doesn't do it for me anymore!

At 11 years of age, it certainly is showing a sign of maturity. Its color now deeper brown/red than when I first obtained it. The tea liquor is smooth with great clarity. What's most interesting is the chaqi: heavy and calming at the same time. Heavy in the sense that I felt my body sank with a heavy feeling, though in a very relaxing and calming sort of way. Warmth spread throughout my body, causing light perspiration. It's a welcome feeling.

shah82 wrote:How do you feel your teas are aging, in general? Do you have a special pumidor?

Shah: the small stash that I keep at home is probably not aging as ideally considering that it is kept in a closed cabinet with a bowl of water to keep the alcove from getting too dry. Los Angeles air can be unforgiving in its dryness, for pu'er tea at least.

Most of my pu'er, however, are sleeping at an offsite wine-storage facility, where the temperature and humidity are controlled (~60'F/~60%). I'd like to believe that that's a more ideal environment for tea-keeping. But honestly, I haven't had the chance to do a side-by-side tasting between a tea that I have at home vs. the tea that I keep offsite.

So, I'm curious to find out, too. I do have a few more of this same 2001 Menghai Yiwu Zhengsan tea offsite -- the one at home being from the same tong as the rest. So it would be interesting to do a side-by-side tasting to find out just how the offsite environment is treating my teas.

I've been nursing a theory that a more ambient approach to storage makes for more interesting old tea. Cook it too evenly with a static humidity, and you'll get a cake with one major theme. Variance allows for different colonies of microflora to be active at different times, resulting in a more complex aged cake. That's why a proper warehouse technique is valuable, and well done traditional storage is superior to simple wet storage--as the jians are regularly moved to different microclimates in the warehouse. Do be advised that puerh needs *heat*, from what I understand. 60 degrees F strikes me as too cool.

The Menghai One-Leaf is, at least, a cheaper tea! Can get it from Skip4tea for about $245. Which is kind of unusual, since many 2001 Yiwu are quite expensive. I have noticed that the enthusiasm for this tea has gone down over time, with some cites of weakness in the soup. So it's interesting that you found it good. Perhaps it's all about outwaiting quiet periods, or something.

Shah: I think what you said about ambient approach to storage is not a mere theory, but in fact what's done by pu'er traders and collectors. Had I the mean to do so, I would've done the same. The problem with LA climate for tea storage is its excessive dryness. So, lacking a dedicated space at home that I can use to store my teas properly, it seemed to me that the wine storage facility is the lesser evil -- it has got the humidity and the temperature is not devastatingly cold -- at least I hope not. So I placed most of my teas there not because I think it's better than your theory, but because it is the best option I have at the moment.

Regarding the 2001 Menghai Yiwu Zhengsan tea, thinking back to today's morning session with it, the tea soup was indeed nothing special. It's simply and ordinarily pleasant: smooth and characteristically Yiwu in taste profile. But what striked me as very welcoming was how my body reacted to it. I literally felt so relaxed and calmed, a feeling not unlike being in a meditative mood during a qigong exercise. That I liked very much! The tea soup, taste and mouthfeel seemed secondary and unimportant when the chaqi impresses me positively. My 2 cents.

You seem very much in-touch with the market, prices and product varieties. Are you in the tea trade by any chance?

This morning I found a 1992 Xiaguan tuocha hiding among my stash at home and I decided to give it a go. I can't remember the last time I brewed it, but it must have been years ago. It was purchased from a tea friend, who at the time was unloading a number of stuff for cheap, and I got this tuocha for a mere $10.

It's now 20 years old. It made me wonder how an aged, cheap, Xiaguan tuocha would fare.

The most pleasant thing about this tea is the smell of the leaves. When dry, it gives off a lot of fruity high notes (plummy). When wet, a good amount of green, grassy notes are present, too.

As with XG tuochas that I have come across, the compression is very dense. So much so that I overestimated the amount of dry leaves that went inside my gaiwan.

8s, 8s, 10s, 10s, 12s, 15s

The liquor is not impressive. It's cloudy and rough on the mouth and throat. The body is thin. The feeling or energy that I get from this tea was weak, a bit messy and heady, which I did not enjoy.

To sum, except for its decent fragrance, it's an unimpressive 20 years-old tea.

The fact of the matter is, Houde still has '80s tuo still for sale. There be a reason why most dry stored tuos are not popular. Zillions upon zillions of years to age that iron sucka. If I had it here in Atlanta, it wouldn't be great. There are Singpore dry storage 1999/2000 Dayi/Lincang Tea Factory tuos that just aren't that interesting. If one keeps up with the Chinese forums, there are various disappointed threads about how their early 2k Xiagun tuo hasn't aged a day since they bought it all that time ago.

I agree that, for Xiaguan tea, the tight compression means this is plausible as early 90s based on the color of the tea, and the pictures of the leaves.

But, this is one reason that, for my taste, this kind of tea is best with some pretty heavy traditional storage. I have some 90s xiaguan cakes (also tightly compressed) which are still fairly fresh tasting, despite having some less-than-dry storage.